Hive minds are a staple of science fiction, going back to Olaf Stapledon's Martians, if not earlier. In mid-century they became a powerful metaphor for the way oppressive societies like Communism and Fascism subsume an individual's identity. Unfortunately, this led to a tendency to map hive minds onto real-world totalitarian systems, with a charismatic leader at the top and ruthless enforcers oppressing the masses. T.H. White did this wonderfully in The Sword in the Stone, when Merlyn magically sends the young Arthur to visit an ant colony in order to learn firsthand what it's like to be the victim of an oppressive system.
But that ignores what makes hive minds so interesting. In reality, the "mind" of an ant colony or a flock of birds doesn't reside in the Queen, or some Head Bird. Instead it's an emergent property of the group, just as human intelligence is an emergent property of our billions of neurons. There's no "seat of intelligence" in our brain (Descartes thought it might be the pineal gland). A Phineas Gage can get big holes blown through his head and remain functional because intelligence is distributed across the entire brain.
A pair of researchers in Hungary have analyzed bird flocking behavior, using tools for modeling the motion of particles. They found that the flock as an entity can switch from flying to sitting on the ground much more quickly than simply a random group of birds would as individuals. In other words, the flock decides to land as a unit, even though the birds which make up the flock are just following some fairly simple behavioral rules about maintaining safe distance from each other, staying in the flock, and so on.
This has its parallel in human societies, too -- a modern market economy is an "emergent property" of billions of individuals pursuing fairly simple, personal goals. There's no master mind controlling the Invisible Hand, yet a market economy is much more efficient than directed ones. Far from being a metaphor for totalitarianism, a hive mind can show the power of individual freedom.
But that ignores what makes hive minds so interesting. In reality, the "mind" of an ant colony or a flock of birds doesn't reside in the Queen, or some Head Bird. Instead it's an emergent property of the group, just as human intelligence is an emergent property of our billions of neurons. There's no "seat of intelligence" in our brain (Descartes thought it might be the pineal gland). A Phineas Gage can get big holes blown through his head and remain functional because intelligence is distributed across the entire brain.
A pair of researchers in Hungary have analyzed bird flocking behavior, using tools for modeling the motion of particles. They found that the flock as an entity can switch from flying to sitting on the ground much more quickly than simply a random group of birds would as individuals. In other words, the flock decides to land as a unit, even though the birds which make up the flock are just following some fairly simple behavioral rules about maintaining safe distance from each other, staying in the flock, and so on.
This has its parallel in human societies, too -- a modern market economy is an "emergent property" of billions of individuals pursuing fairly simple, personal goals. There's no master mind controlling the Invisible Hand, yet a market economy is much more efficient than directed ones. Far from being a metaphor for totalitarianism, a hive mind can show the power of individual freedom.
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